Dissertation

The Isolated Chicken Eye Test to Replace the Draize Test in Rabbits : From Development to Implementation: “The Long and Winding Road”

Prinsen, Menk K

2014

Overview

Before industrialization, eye defects were mainly caused by physical trauma or by diseases caused by malnutrition, bacterial infection or parasites. In the twentieth century, when (chemical) industrialization strongly developed, it became apparent that conditions at the workplace could have distinct adverse effects on health and safety of employees. Acute and long-term exposure to a variety of industrial chemicals were responsible for a range of diseases, varying from relatively mild, non-life threatening phenomena, such as dermatitis, to incurable, lethal conditions such as cancer. After World War II, the chemical industry rapidly increased and workers became organized and more concerned with the potential risks they could encounter in the workplace. Consequently, the need for identifying health hazards and worker’s protection became an important issue in most industrial countries. Moreover, people could afford more luxury products and the household and personal care industry became more and more innovative using new technologies and (chemical) ingredients. Therefore, an even larger population of people needed to be safeguarded from potential hazardous substances.To establish the potential risk of exposure of the eyes to compounds, the Food and Drug Administration of the United States (US-FDA) adopted the Draize eye irritation test using rabbits already in 1961.At first sight, this test is simple and straightforward and provides a useful tool for regulators. However, the controversial character of this type of animal testing became known to the general public – on 15 April 1980, Henry Spira, a BelgianAmerican advocate, member and founder of the Animal Rights International group bought a fullpage advertisement (Figure 1) in the New York Times, with the header: “How many rabbits does Revlon blind for beauty's sake?” – and the need to develop alternative non-animal tests became apparent. Within a year after Spira’s advertisment, Revlon had donated $750,000 to a fund to investigate alternatives to animal testing, followed by substantial donations from Avon, Bristol Meyers, Estée Lauder, Max Factor, Chanel, and Mary Kay Cosmetics. These donations led to the creation of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (Wikepedia; Henry Spira). The attempts to validate alternative tests for eye irritation in the early nineteen-eighties were considered to be relatively simple by comparing in vitro and in vivoirritation index scores. What was expected to be a process of several years, however, turned out to be a decades spanning process still not fully completed.For a large part, this can be attributed to the nature of the in vivo test in rabbits, which is more complicated and compromised than originally believed.This thesis describes the development, performance, validation and acceptance of one of the first alternatives, namely the in vitro isolated eye test.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Blood / Blood vessels / Collagen / Cornea / Corrosion / Eggs / Endothelium / Eye examinations / Infections / Iris / Ophthalmology / Permeability / Rabbits / Toxicity / Toxicology
• ISBN: 9798380562904